And Nothing Remained
by Flipout6
Summary: An Enclave Soldier, barely clinging to life, laments the loss of everything he holds dear at the hands of the sadistic Lone Wanderer, who begins experiencing his own doubts. Unrelated to my other fics. Please Review if you like it, constructive criticism welcome. One-shot.


It was an eerie, deadly silence that hung menacingly in the metallic hallways of Raven Rock. Bullet holes and plasma burns pockmarked the walls, lights flickered and hung from the ceiling by the wires, fires blazed. There were corpses everywhere, from soldiers to scientists, and everything in between. Even Anna Holt, the scientist from Project Purity, lay in a pool of blood, three .556's forming a bloody tatoo between her eyes.

Sergeant Valtrop, of the Enclave Infantry Reserve, Third Squad, was the only survivor on the entire floor.

He dragged himself, painfully, across the floor, the victim of a plasma grenade. He was horribly burned, his armor shredded. The eyepieces of his helmet were shattered, the broken glass embedded in his skin, his left eye blinded. He ignored all of it, simply dragging himself across the floor, leaving a messy smear of blood in his wake.

He didn't care that he was going to die soon, or that his squad was dead, or that he had failed in his sworn duties to the Enclave and to America. He only cared about his family.

He could see their remains, lying sprawled across the floor in their dormitory. He could see his wife, Carrie, in a sitting position on the wall. There was an expression of terror etched into her lifeless face as her arms attempted to shield his twin daughters- Ashley and Lillian- from an intruder in the doorway...all of them, dead. His wife at fourty-five, his daughters barely into their twenties. Blood had sprayed onto the walls behind them, Valtrop could see the bullet wounds that ended them.

He crawled up to their corpses, crushed with a terrible grief. The only eye he had left was streaming tears. Valtrop stroked his wife's cheek with a violently shaking hand, unable to form words, and checked everybody's vitals, feebly hoping he could save them. But it was all in vain.

Valtrop screamed in agonizing pain as his body wracked with sobs, his head settling to rest on the floor. Why did the President even bother with Project Purity? Why didn't Autumn kill the Wanderer when he had the chance? And why, oh why, did the Wanderer have to go after the defenseless? What did Valtrop's poor family ever do to him?

For what seemed like an eternity, the fatally-wounded Sergeant lay there, inconsolable and alone in a cruel, cruel world. His sobs and cries echoed throughout the hallways as his family's murderer located the source of the sound. Footsteps clanked on the catwalk outside, and Valtrop heard a voice.

"Aww, was that your little family? Is the little soldier mad that he had to taste his own bitter, bitter medicine? Thinks it's all so unfair?"

_Yes._

"Well that's just too bad. I guess he couldn't protect his family, huh? Even with all the big guns and thick armor, he still couldn't protect a _bloody. Little. Thing._"

Valtrop was devastated. For all of his insanity, his _evil, _the Wanderer was right. He couldn't protect home, himself, he couldn't even save his family. He had nothing to live for, he was useless. His entire life had been for nothing, and all those years of happiness and love and sorrow had amounted to...this. A shattered man, in shattered armor, with shattered hopes and dreams of a future for his daughters and his wife. Everybody he ever knew, everybody he ever loved, was dead. Valtrop wanted nothing more than to join them.

Then the bullet entered his skull, and he was at peace.

* * *

The Wanderer stumbled past the Vertibird bays, overtop the corpses of human and robot alike, his boots clanking on the catwalk, the sound overwhelmed by the blaring alarms and explosions. He gritted his teeth as he clutched his injured side, and he felt his eyes leak tears, though he didn't know why.

Oh, who was he kidding?

He wasn't who he'd fooled himself into thinking he was. He wasn't the gun-toting, self-reliant badass _he_ thought he was. He wasn't the invincible demon that _everybody_ thought he was. He was just a scared, lonely boy, yearning to see his father again.

_That's a load of bull, and you know it. _He thought to himself. _You know that you're... _

_Nothing. _

The Wanderer stopped in his tracks, the exit to the base in sight, right at the end of the hallway.

_You know you can get out of this. _He thought again. _Just get to the door and get out._

_Why?_

_What do you mean why? Look at you, a legend, leaving big-shots like Ashur and Tenpenny pissin' in their panties! _He remained unconvinced.

_You're only anything because you left the Vault after Dad, looking for him. You're nothing without him, you feel it and you know it. You didn't get to be who you are by being strong, you got where you are because you stepped on the weak and stabbed your betters from behind._

_You just wiped out a whole Enclave base!_

_You betrayed someone who took a chance to trust you. They're dead because you're a weasel, not because you're a tough guy._

The Wanderer dropped his beloved Chinese Assault Rifle, and it clatterred as it hit the ground.

_What are you, but a slimy little rat playing Big Man? Dad always inspired you with his talk about the Waters of Life, about helping others, and you make so many suffer just for your own selfish means? _

The alarms in the base blazed louder. The Wanderer didn't move.

_You spent three days with Dad, and that was all it took for him to tell you that he was disappointed with you. What would he say, if he saw what you did here?_

_That I did the world a service._

_Was killing all these people really a service? Sure, the soldiers were scum, but the citizens? How about that man back there, wailing over the bodies of his wife and daughters?_

_He's dead, it doesn't matter._

_Dad would turn his back on you. He wouldn't want anything to do with you, even he would think you deserve to die._

_No, not Dad. He wouldn't do that._

_Maybe he wouldn't. But he wouldn't want anything to do with you ever again. You'd break his heart._

_But he'd keep me around._

_And every time he looked at you, he'd wonder where he'd failed, how he'd screwed up to raise a son like this._

_It's not his fault!_

_He doesn't know that. He would spend the rest of his life miserable. Project Purity didn't work- not that you did anything to help - and his only child is.. this?_

_Fine. Fine. He would. But you can still make it out of here, think about things once you're outside. You can think things over there._

_No...I don't think so._

The Lone Wanderer stayed glued to the spot, staring at the exit to Raven Rock, his salvation. The base continued to fail and fall apart. Smoke filled the hallways as more and more sections caught fire. The entire time, as the base destroyed itself around him, The Wanderer did not move, did not blink. He made no attempt to move, even when he choked on smoke and collapsed unconcious to the metallic floor, landing beside his abandoned rifle. It was only seconds until a massive explosion rocked the facility.

A wall of flames roared up through the hallway, wrapping themselves up around the Lone Wanderer, embracing him, and removing him from existence. The entire base collapsed in on itself, sealing the ashes of the Lone Wanderer inside a metallic tomb, never to be disturbed.

And nobody mourned his loss.


End file.
